SUCCESS: no list, $9k in 24hr, $25k in 2wk, 2,500+ on list in 60 days

57 replies
Oh, and my conversion ratio fluctuates between 16% - 19%.

And that was in spite of getting yanked around by paypal right in the middle of the launch...

No paid traffic. No SEO. No ad/email swaps. No affiliates promoting it. Just viral facebook marketing.

Greetings all. Just wanted to share a little of my success here on the forum.

I know if I can pull of a launch like this (my first, more on that below), then you can do it to. IM is "scary" and you put yourself at risk whenever you put your name on something and start selling. Thoughts like "what if it flops" and "what if I've spent all this time/money and it doesn't sell?" are common. Here's an alternative thought: "I've already spent all this time and money, I owe it to myself and this project to put it out there and see what happens. If it 'flops' I'll learn from my mistakes and improve it." Smart money is fast money. Sitting around waiting for "something else" before I start selling "this" isn't making any money - I know, I've done it!

So I encourage you to keep plowing ahead - if you're determined and you keep making progress YOU WILL SUCCEED!! Don't listen to all the doubts and the negativity - Wouldn't you rather fail doing something - anything - than to fail doing absolutely nothing at all? So c'mon - keep plowing ahead, don't give up!

Get that project out you've quit working on - the one that was your original idea - the one that you were all excited about when you started getting into IM in the beginning. Get that thing out, dust it off, and finish it. Kick it out the door if that's the only way you can get it into the sunlight - but whatever you do, don't let it keep sitting the closet of your mind doing nothing!

OK, ok, stepping down off the soap box. I'm passionate about marketing and being successful and can't help but get carried away sometimes. :-D

So back to my recent success:

I developed a facebook marketing platform (not available to the public) and wanted to build some real-life case studies of how successful using the system would be.

For my first case study I developed a membership site that costs $20/mo. For the launch I was also selling a lifetime membership for a one-time payment of $297.

I sent out the launch announcement to friends around 10pm on May 6 and after a couple hours went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning I had already banked $2k. I thought "OK, I'll probably top $5k today". I ran a webinar that night (announced at the last minute) and by the webinar end I had banked $9k.

On the 14th Paypal decided I was having too much fun and locked up my account - ever had that happen to you? *right in the launch*? Geeze what is up with that company?

The cart I was using was custom-coded, so I had to scramble around and get google checkout integrated. On the 17th I was back up and taking orders again. By the 28th I had banked $25k and closed the lifetime membership.

So at the two week mark I had 201 subscribers at $20/mo (for $4k/mo residual income) and had already made $25k (some of which I had to fight with paypal to get - lucky for me I was transferring the money out of paypal every day so not much got locked up by them).

Two important things were happening with every opt-in on the site:

1. I could post directly on their facebook wall. But didn't do it except about once a week, maybe twice a week (reverse of what you'd think is successful, right?).

2. I got their best email address (from facebook) and they were automatically added to my autoresponder in the background. I also didn't email them except when I was also posting on their wall.

The key there is I wanted to get all the permissions to talk to them, but really wanted to avoid abusing that permission. A lot of facebook plugins you see today immediately post on someone's wall as part of the opt-in - I wanted to avoid that. The tool I wrote can immediately post if I want it to, but I just don't use it that way. I also didn't want to immediately start spamming their email.

Around day 60 I decided to open lifetime memberships again, but only during a special 2-hr webinar. At this point the monthly members were well over 300 and I didn't mind shedding some of monthly income for a quick one-time cash hit. In two hours I sold $6.5k in lifetime accounts (the price was now $347). I wanted to buy a decked-out Lenovo w530 laptop (pricetag: $3,800) and give some cash to my wife to make her happy - it all worked out nice!

So now at day 70 I'm sitting at 450+ accounts which puts me over 6-figures for the year. And since it's growing at a modest rate every single day, each month actually pulls in more than the month before.

I've been studying IM for 7 or so years, this is the first launch I've ever done. I'm a programmer by trade and wanted to focus on delivering services, so I've held back looking for a good service to jump into and then wanted to make sure I had a solid case-study to analyze the success of my tool. I'll be doing a couple more projects based on my facebook platform before I'm ready to take it mainstream.

Here's a chart of the daily account growth. You'll notice that there are two downward dips, both start around the 5th of the month - this is people coming up on their monthly and they decided they don't want to renew or starting around the 6th/7th, that's a number of accounts in the initial signup who's auto-pay fails. I think that's pretty normal to see this type of dip - and it certainly isn't hurting the growth.

(ctrl-shift-click to open full-sized in separate window)


Keep in mind, that's all without paying a dime for traffic, the membership site isn't SEOed, I didn't do an ad/email swap, and there are no affiliates promoting it for me. This is all traffic that's coming virally right off of facebook.

Oh - and I'll start another discussion in the near future on what viral really is. These "post on your wall one time for the opt in" plugins you see running around aren't viral at all and you usually keep having to buy more ads/traffic to send to it to feed it.

A true virus spreads all on it's own through contact - and the host continues to infect people around them over and over every time they are in contact. That's a far cry from the "one time post on your wall" so-called viral tools you commonly see.

Anyway - I look forward to your feedback and comments!
#facebook #list #list buiding #membership site #six figure income #success #viral
  • Profile picture of the author fedor50
    congrats on your success.hard work and determination is what is needed to succeed online.and the will to never
    give up
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by fedor50 View Post

      congrats on your success.hard work and determination is what is needed to succeed online.and the will to never
      give up
      Thanks fedor - you're right, just keep going even when you fail and you will succeed!
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  • Profile picture of the author TycoonRob
    Wow. And the fact that you got those numbers strictly through Facebook are amazing? Did you have to get a ton of followers to be able to do that? I know you can use some Fiverr gigs to increase followers, but for me most of my friends are just friends, not business-minded people. Maybe I should start another FB account for biz.

    Any clue into what the membership site was about? Was it IM related?
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by razztek View Post

      Wow. And the fact that you got those numbers strictly through Facebook are amazing? Did you have to get a ton of followers to be able to do that?
      I had 1500 when I started, now I'm up to 1700. But really it's not how many friends you have, it's how many friends they have ;-D

      The idea is once you virally (real "viral", not fake "viral") infect someone, you will reach all of their friends over time (maybe not convert, but they will see your posts). And once you get a friend or two of theirs, it starts snowballing because all their common friends are now seeing your posts several times in their feed from different friends and feel left out. The social pressure is awesome.

      Originally Posted by razztek View Post

      I know you can use some Fiverr gigs to increase followers, but for me most of my friends are just friends, not business-minded people. Maybe I should start another FB account for biz.
      Mine started as "real" friends and friends of friends. Then over the past 7 years of IM study I gained probably that same amount in just "IM friends". And we adopted from Haiti, and I wrote a couple pdfs for others adopting, so they naturally friended me. So I'd say about 1/3 of my friends are IM-minded. The rest definitely aren't.

      Originally Posted by razztek View Post

      Any clue into what the membership site was about? Was it IM related?
      Not IM, it's a unique marketing opportunity where you place an ad every day anywhere online, you register your ad with the company you're advertising for, and you get paid that night. You're paid a percentage (everyone is paid the same percent), and you can have your payment build up your base number that you're paid that percent on so that each day you're paid more and more. I have a friend that started a year ago and has made more than a million this year. I started a little late, but I can see mine is really growing and I should be able to duplicate his success. I don't want to really talk a lot about it on the forum, people can contact me in private if necessary. I don't want to "break the rules" here and really just want to focus on the success of my fb tool and membership site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan Allard
    Great job and awesome success story! You say that you sent out the launch announcement to friends and woke up with 2K. What kind of friends do you have? Lol I mean we're they JV parteners, your email list, or what?
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by Dan Allard View Post

      Great job and awesome success story! You say that you sent out the launch announcement to friends and woke up with 2K. What kind of friends do you have? Lol I mean we're they JV parteners, your email list, or what?
      They were people in the niche that needed what I was offering. I was already a participant/consumer in the niche just like them, so I didn't come off like a sales guy. I told them how I had developed this membership site "for myself" and that they might be interested.

      I hate hype. I'm strictly a "tell them the numbers" and let the thing speak for itself kinda-guy. Look at my post that started this thread. I didn't make any crazy claims "it will make you $1m in a month while shining your shoes - even while you're asleep!" I just told you guys what the system is doing for me.

      Same thing I did with my friends. I told them what it was doing for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author gcbmark20
    Excellent work and thanks for sharing that with us.

    I currently use Facebook for my business and have seen some nice opt-in rates but nothing like the kind of results you are getting there. AWESOME!!!

    I am playing the patient game but would love to see that software of yours and give it a go to see what it could do for peoples Facebook business efforts.

    Will you be promoting it at anytime?

    Thanks for the share and good luck with the furture efforts hopw things keep progressing my friend!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by gcbmark20 View Post

      Excellent work and thanks for sharing that with us.
      Thanks!

      Originally Posted by gcbmark20 View Post

      I currently use Facebook for my business and have seen some nice opt-in rates but nothing like the kind of results you are getting there. AWESOME!!!
      Honestly, it can be the niche. Maybe I have found a golden-goose niche. I *hate* comparing what guy A is doing with what guy B is doing. There are way too many variables. Same tools in two different niches can have drastically different results, has nothing to do with the marketer. Sometimes we value ourselves by the success we have (or don't have) - that's totally wrong.

      I'd be interested to see what you're doing and see if I have any ideas to improve on it - no obligation in either direction, just friends finding ways to help friends.

      Originally Posted by gcbmark20 View Post

      I am playing the patient game but would love to see that software of yours and give it a go to see what it could do for peoples Facebook business efforts.

      Will you be promoting it at anytime?
      IM me if you want to be notified when I'm rolling it out.

      Right now I'm looking for a couple more case studies to do. One site I'm going to launch based off of it that will be strictly IM, it will be membership (because the tool creates the membership for you and is also what is used to login/logout), but I'm thinking it will be free. I may have some premium content on it, but for the most part I just want to blog on IM, post analysis and tips from what I'm doing, talk about what works and doesn't work, etc.

      I wanted my first site to not be IM. I think selling in IM is a unique animal all on it's own. Some things that work in IM won't work in non-IM. So I wanted make sure this thing would work "in the real world".

      This tool will rock in offline - think "a restaurant that wants a free coupon of the week club". The way to get it is facebook opt-in. Then every week the restaurant posts on all their member's walls to come get the new coupon. BOOM - it's viral. All the friends see the posts and get the coupon (by opting in), next week the restaurant is posting on their wall. Hmmmm. Thinking about how often I like to frequent a restaurant this would probably have more success if it were done every other week to maybe once a month. Most people don't like going to the same restaurant every week, so you wouldn't want to burn them out on your post and then the post either gets deleted (which then they can select to delete all posts or even "unsubscribe"/disable) or they just tune them out. One thing I've learned about posting on walls is your open rate is much higher than email (the guy you posted on sees it plus 120 friends - that's technically 12100% open rate), but you can't spam them like you can with email.

      Check it out - someone can take that one paragraph there and go be a "competitor" of me if they find a similar tool - or maybe they have it developed. Go right ahead. I've got plenty of money-making ideas and don't mind sharing them. If you do take that idea - don't forget to write back to me and tell me how it turned out.

      Originally Posted by gcbmark20 View Post

      Thanks for the share and good luck with the furture efforts hopw things keep progressing my friend!
      Sure thing, I look forward to hearing back from you on what you're doing to see if I can come up with any ideas on how you can improve. That's what this is all about. Get something - almost anything - out there first, then improve on it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bill Hugall
    WOW well done!!!! That is madness. I agree with Dan what kind of friends do you have. Great story. My wife likes money as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author bt
      That's freaking awesome, at that rate you'll be a millionaire in no time. What I really like is that you did it without a list.

      If you don't mind me asking what's your background and how long have you been an Internet Marketer, and if you don't mind, keep us updated on your next launch. Over and out..

      Terry
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      • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
        Originally Posted by bt View Post

        That's freaking awesome, at that rate you'll be a millionaire in no time. What I really like is that you did it without a list.
        Thanks Terry - I saw your success post (on your awesome conversion rate - congrats to you too!) and thought "you know, I should put mine out there too" - I'm not trying to one-up you - I think there's enough money out there that if all of us worked together more (maybe some healthy competition at times) we'd all make more than we'd make working alone.

        Originally Posted by bt View Post

        If you don't mind me asking what's your background and how long have you been an Internet Marketer, and if you don't mind, keep us updated on your next launch. Over and out..

        Terry
        My background is all IT stuff. I started programming back in the 80s (yep, I'm an "old" guy), went in the Marines for 5 (notice the haircut?) as an aircraft data analyst, got into writing network-based services when I got out, then internet security, running my own hosting servers, web programming, ..... I was always working in the context of IT security.

        I actually got into IM because I had a security program that locked down everything you do online and wanted to market it. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I ended up just taking a lot of time following other marketers and learning. I did some experiments on ad swapping etc to test out what I was learning but never did anything serious. I need to write a post on my favorite marketers and why (there are only two - Lee McIntyre and Kim Roach). I think they market the "right way" and they taught/teach (Lee is retiring evidently) the right methods.

        This is my first serious effort in Internet Marketing.
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        • Profile picture of the author cjreynolds
          Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

          My background is all IT stuff. I started programming back in the 80s (yep, I'm an "old" guy), went in the Marines for 5 (notice the haircut?) as an aircraft data analyst, got into writing network-based services when I got out, then internet security, running my own hosting servers, web programming, ..... I was always working in the context of IT security.

          I actually got into IM because I had a security program that locked down everything you do online and wanted to market it. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I ended up just taking a lot of time following other marketers and learning. I did some experiments on ad swapping etc to test out what I was learning but never did anything serious. I need to write a post on my favorite marketers and why (there are only two - Lee McIntyre and Kim Roach). I think they market the "right way" and they taught/teach (Lee is retiring evidently) the right methods.

          This is my first serious effort in Internet Marketing.
          Your post is an inspiration! My IT/IM journey has been a lot like yours (I even started programming in 1980 LOL). I got into IM to market a program I wrote in 1999. Currently I'm in the process of getting some successful campaigns going to get my feet wet, and hopefully be able to quit the 9-5 and have time to work on the software.

          As I get closer to 'go-time' for the software I may be askin if I can pick your brain

          Great job!

          joe
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          I just added this sig so I can refer to it in my posts...

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          • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
            Originally Posted by cjreynolds View Post

            As I get closer to 'go-time' for the software I may be askin if I can pick your brain
            Absolutely! Be happy to help - just hit me up when you're ready!
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      • Profile picture of the author mrultra
        Banned
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        • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
          Originally Posted by mrultra View Post

          Except that he did have a list....they're called Facebook friends. It may not be a list in the traditional sense where an autoresponder is involved, but it's still a list. And in his case, it's a list that took him 7 years to build.
          Good technical point. Not sure how long it took me to build it, I can't remember when I started my facebook account.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by bilkat19 View Post

      WOW well done!!!! That is madness. I agree with Dan what kind of friends do you have. Great story. My wife likes money as well.
      LOL. I think all women go get some secret shot when they are growing up that makes them like money. Or maybe it's a virus and like rabies you can be a carrier (like a raccoon) and it doesn't affect you unless you're female and over a certain age.

      I haven't quite figured it out yet...

      (of course us boys have to have our toys too - that decked out Lenovo w530!!! and I'm looking to pick up an android tablet too, thinking about the transformer prime, I like the keyboard - other suggestions?)
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  • Profile picture of the author christhurman
    what is your membership for? make money online niche?

    and i thought facebook was doing away with the ability to post on people's walls. i guess it is still available to do though?
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by christhurman View Post

      and i thought facebook was doing away with the ability to post on people's walls. i guess it is still available to do though?
      They are changing it. They are changing it where the token you get when someone gives your app permission to do offline-post will expire after 60 days. So you just re-auth them every time they come to your site to keep it fresh.

      They were supposed to start that earlier this year, but they haven't yet. It's not supposed to start until Oct 3 unless they decide to bump it again.

      Either way, this thing will still work.
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  • >>>>On the 14th Paypal decided I was having too much fun and locked up my account

    that cracked me up!

    Congrats on taking action that is is what it's all about!

    PS: Down the road if you want PM me I do webinar JV's love interviewing action takers like you!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by HelpingYouBeAnExpert View Post

      PS: Down the road if you want PM me I do webinar JV's love interviewing action takers like you!
      PMing you. I'm funny about JV. I'm not sure it's a good fit for my overall business model, but I'm open to find out what we can do.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by xxxJamesxxx View Post

      You make it sound soooooo easy.

      James Scholes
      Yeah, I'll try to make it sound hard next time. :^D

      'bout the only hard thing to it was the 3 months night-and-day-and-weekends I worked on doing the coding.

      Anyone who's programmed with the facebook API know that it's not documented well, whatever you find as a code sample probably doesn't work any more, and you just have to keep banging at it until you get it to do exactly what you want.

      I still haven't figured out how to post a video directly on the wall (but it doesn't match my business model well so I'm not in a big hurry either).
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  • Profile picture of the author yudwill
    Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

    Oh, and my conversion ratio fluctuates between 16% - 19%.

    And that was in spite of getting yanked around by paypal right in the middle of the launch...

    No paid traffic. No SEO. No ad/email swaps. No affiliates promoting it. Just viral facebook marketing.

    Greetings all. Just wanted to share a little of my success here on the forum.

    I know if I can pull of a launch like this (my first, more on that below), then you can do it to. IM is "scary" and you put yourself at risk whenever you put your name on something and start selling. Thoughts like "what if it flops" and "what if I've spent all this time/money and it doesn't sell?" are common. Here's an alternative thought: "I've already spent all this time and money, I owe it to myself and this project to put it out there and see what happens. If it 'flops' I'll learn from my mistakes and improve it." Smart money is fast money. Sitting around waiting for "something else" before I start selling "this" isn't making any money - I know, I've done it!

    So I encourage you to keep plowing ahead - if you're determined and you keep making progress YOU WILL SUCCEED!! Don't listen to all the doubts and the negativity - Wouldn't you rather fail doing something - anything - than to fail doing absolutely nothing at all? So c'mon - keep plowing ahead, don't give up!

    Get that project out you've quit working on - the one that was your original idea - the one that you were all excited about when you started getting into IM in the beginning. Get that thing out, dust it off, and finish it. Kick it out the door if that's the only way you can get it into the sunlight - but whatever you do, don't let it keep sitting the closet of your mind doing nothing!

    OK, ok, stepping down off the soap box. I'm passionate about marketing and being successful and can't help but get carried away sometimes. :-D

    So back to my recent success:

    I developed a facebook marketing platform (not available to the public) and wanted to build some real-life case studies of how successful using the system would be.

    For my first case study I developed a membership site that costs $20/mo. For the launch I was also selling a lifetime membership for a one-time payment of $297.

    I sent out the launch announcement to friends around 10pm on May 6 and after a couple hours went to bed.

    When I woke up the next morning I had already banked $2k. I thought "OK, I'll probably top $5k today". I ran a webinar that night (announced at the last minute) and by the webinar end I had banked $9k.

    On the 14th Paypal decided I was having too much fun and locked up my account - ever had that happen to you? *right in the launch*? Geeze what is up with that company?

    The cart I was using was custom-coded, so I had to scramble around and get google checkout integrated. On the 17th I was back up and taking orders again. By the 28th I had banked $25k and closed the lifetime membership.

    So at the two week mark I had 201 subscribers at $20/mo (for $4k/mo residual income) and had already made $25k (some of which I had to fight with paypal to get - lucky for me I was transferring the money out of paypal every day so not much got locked up by them).

    Two important things were happening with every opt-in on the site:

    1. I could post directly on their facebook wall. But didn't do it except about once a week, maybe twice a week (reverse of what you'd think is successful, right?).

    2. I got their best email address (from facebook) and they were automatically added to my autoresponder in the background. I also didn't email them except when I was also posting on their wall.

    The key there is I wanted to get all the permissions to talk to them, but really wanted to avoid abusing that permission. A lot of facebook plugins you see today immediately post on someone's wall as part of the opt-in - I wanted to avoid that. The tool I wrote can immediately post if I want it to, but I just don't use it that way. I also didn't want to immediately start spamming their email.

    Around day 60 I decided to open lifetime memberships again, but only during a special 2-hr webinar. At this point the monthly members were well over 300 and I didn't mind shedding some of monthly income for a quick one-time cash hit. In two hours I sold $6.5k in lifetime accounts (the price was now $347). I wanted to buy a decked-out Lenovo w530 laptop (pricetag: $3,800) and give some cash to my wife to make her happy - it all worked out nice!

    So now at day 70 I'm sitting at 450+ accounts which puts me over 6-figures for the year. And since it's growing at a modest rate every single day, each month actually pulls in more than the month before.

    I've been studying IM for 7 or so years, this is the first launch I've ever done. I'm a programmer by trade and wanted to focus on delivering services, so I've held back looking for a good service to jump into and then wanted to make sure I had a solid case-study to analyze the success of my tool. I'll be doing a couple more projects based on my facebook platform before I'm ready to take it mainstream.

    Here's a chart of the daily account growth. You'll notice that there are two downward dips, both start around the 5th of the month - this is people coming up on their monthly and they decided they don't want to renew or starting around the 6th/7th, that's a number of accounts in the initial signup who's auto-pay fails. I think that's pretty normal to see this type of dip - and it certainly isn't hurting the growth.

    (ctrl-shift-click to open full-sized in separate window)


    Keep in mind, that's all without paying a dime for traffic, the membership site isn't SEOed, I didn't do an ad/email swap, and there are no affiliates promoting it for me. This is all traffic that's coming virally right off of facebook.

    Oh - and I'll start another discussion in the near future on what viral really is. These "post on your wall one time for the opt in" plugins you see running around aren't viral at all and you usually keep having to buy more ads/traffic to send to it to feed it.

    A true virus spreads all on it's own through contact - and the host continues to infect people around them over and over every time they are in contact. That's a far cry from the "one time post on your wall" so-called viral tools you commonly see.

    Anyway - I look forward to your feedback and comments!
    congrats bro,.
    thats amazing technic
    great job sir,
    and now to be continue to be big :-D
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by yudwill View Post

      congrats bro,.
      thats amazing technic
      great job sir,
      and now to be continue to be big :-D
      Thanks yudwill!
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      • Profile picture of the author Dave Espino
        Congrats, Richard!

        That's freakin' exciting!

        Dave
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        • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
          Originally Posted by Dave Espino View Post

          Congrats, Richard!

          That's freakin' exciting!

          Dave
          Thanks Dave!
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  • Profile picture of the author KristianI
    Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

    (some of which I had to fight with paypal to get - lucky for me I was transferring the money out of paypal every day so not much got locked up by them).
    Maybe this was their problem. You pulled out the money. From your perspective it's your hard earn'd money you would like to use, but from their perspective there needs to be some sort of security for refunds and such.

    But lessons learned, maybe paypal is not suitable for such launches. What about google checkout? They accept payment with paypal?

    Anyways it was great to read this post, as I'm in the same situation. I'm also a programmer, and finishing a software ready to launch in a few weeks, and as marketing I was thinking about a similar strategy, so now I have confirmation.
    Thank you, and congratulations to your success!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by KristianI View Post

      Maybe this was their problem. You pulled out the money. From your perspective it's your hard earn'd money you would like to use, but from their perspective there needs to be some sort of security for refunds and such.
      When they called me they said "Oh, we see you're offering lifetime memberships to company X" and I said "nope, no way for me to sell memberships for company X, it's not my company and my membership is completely different from that company".

      But too late - they were wrong and were really hostile when they started the call. Now they had no where to go since they were wrong (took them a couple minutes of actually looking at my site to figure it out - why didn't they do that first? idiots). Once they get egg on their face you lose. I was trying to find a way to give them a "win" without them being so wrong so hard. If I could have given them a win they would feel like they saved face and I could continue using them. But, no way to do it. They make it impossible to give them a win when (a) they are dead wrong and (b) when they call they've already held all the court proceedings and they are calling to tell you your sentencing. "Shoot your customers first, then ask them questions later" - typical paypal mantra.

      Real stupid company. Real stupid people running it.

      Originally Posted by KristianI View Post

      But lessons learned, maybe paypal is not suitable for such launches. What about google checkout? They accept payment with paypal?
      Visa/MC/etc

      Originally Posted by KristianI View Post

      Anyways it was great to read this post, as I'm in the same situation. I'm also a programmer, and finishing a software ready to launch in a few weeks, and as marketing I was thinking about a similar strategy, so now I have confirmation.
      Thank you, and congratulations to your success!
      Cool - let me know how it goes!
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  • Profile picture of the author mjrehaume
    That's impressive! You hit it big and you're still getting results which is pretty impressive! Most of my products die down within the first few weeks. This goes to show me that it can work longer if you follow things right, and upscale it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by mjrehaume View Post

      That's impressive! You hit it big and you're still getting results which is pretty impressive! Most of my products die down within the first few weeks. This goes to show me that it can work longer if you follow things right, and upscale it.
      Yep! I think one secret is having members that are motivated and highly active. Their activity drives the virality (is that a word?).

      Thanks!
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      • Profile picture of the author Brandon Tanner
        Absolutely brilliant idea and implementation, Richard. I love out of the box ideas like this. Very inspiring!
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        • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
          Originally Posted by Brandon Tanner View Post

          Absolutely brilliant idea and implementation, Richard. I love out of the box ideas like this. Very inspiring!
          Thanks Brandon!
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulSolid
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    Congrate Man. Idea is the way that leads to fortunes. nice concept.
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulSolid
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    Congrats Man. Idea is the way that leads to fortunes. nice concept.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by PaulSolid View Post

      Congrats Man. Idea is the way that leads to fortunes. nice concept.
      Thanks Paul - that's exactly what we're doing, we're taking ideas and turning them into money!
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  • Profile picture of the author MaxNiche
    Good luck ahead and congrats,Do you mind shedding some more info about the app?
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by Shane Benwell View Post

      Good luck ahead and congrats,Do you mind shedding some more info about the app?
      PMing you.
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  • Profile picture of the author christhurman
    This is a MLM promotion. There is no magic Facebook method for promotion.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by christhurman View Post

      This is a MLM promotion. There is no magic Facebook method for promotion.
      Actually you're wrong.

      The case study is on a marketing service for people in an MLM - but the tool that's being used has nothing to do with any particular market.

      You're the only guy that contacted me that wanted to know about the ad program - all the rest wanted to know about the facebook tool. So the irony is I tell you what you ask about and then you come and post negative on my thread.

      None of the stats I list on money, members, email subscribers, etc has to do with an MLM, it's all about the success of this method of marketing through facebook.

      I'm not selling an MLM. The case study site I used the facebook tool on is a service, not an MLM.

      And anyway, even if it were, it's still using facebook exactly as I describe. They opt in through facebook and all the marketing takes place through facebook.

      You should retract your post.
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  • Profile picture of the author rmolina88
    Congrats! I'm pretty inspired now!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by rmolina88 View Post

      Congrats! I'm pretty inspired now!
      Thanks rmolina! Keep going - you can do it! JUST NEVER QUIT!
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    I'm getting so fed up with negative idiots on warrior forum.

    I'm sorry to hijack your thread like this, but its really just digusting how pathologically negative some people are.

    If you don't have anything good to say about someone TRYING TO HELP YOU.

    THEN LEAVE THE THREAD.

    end of story.

    Otherwise you're just pissing people off and making yourself look like a jackass.

    Sorry, but god I just can't stand negative people these days.

    I have been having really good success lately, not on facebook, just in my life in general. I truely believe it has SO MUCH to do with stepping AWAY from negativity and into a truely open mindset where you believe anything is possible.

    Sure its good to be skeptical, but what a waste of intelligence it is to always see the negative side of things. What a waste of life it is to always be looking for reasons why something won't work.

    -Red
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    • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      I'm getting so fed up with negative idiots on warrior forum.

      I'm sorry to hijack your thread like this, but its really just digusting how pathologically negative some people are.
      Who was negative?

      Just because someone doesnt jump and down or joy doesn't mean they are negative.

      If you don't have anything good to say about someone TRYING TO HELP YOU.

      THEN LEAVE THE THREAD.
      The OP may give some "insperation" but it doesn't actually help anyone beyond that. I wasn't going to nit pick it but might now.

      Otherwise you're just pissing people off and making yourself look like a jackass.
      Or are showing flaws

      -g
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      • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
        Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

        Who was negative?

        Just because someone doesnt jump and down or joy doesn't mean they are negative.
        Not just negative, but actually wrong. My OP was on facebook, then christhurman came along and said it wasn't on facebook it was an MLM.


        Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

        The OP may give some "insperation" but it doesn't actually help anyone beyond that.
        Except all the people that have said they would like my help on their own similar launch and I'm offering to help them pro bono.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      I'm getting so fed up with negative idiots on warrior forum.

      ...

      Otherwise you're just pissing people off and making yourself look like a jackass.
      I agree Red. There are a lot of guys that do nothing but dump on everything you try to do.

      In this case, he just started here a couple months ago. He may have more experience than just a couple months (no way to know) - I think he just jumped to the wrong conclusion without asking a little more before posting.

      I think he'll figure it out.
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    • Profile picture of the author fin
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      I'm getting so fed up with negative idiots on warrior forum.

      I'm sorry to hijack your thread like this, but its really just digusting how pathologically negative some people are.

      If you don't have anything good to say about someone TRYING TO HELP YOU.

      THEN LEAVE THE THREAD.

      end of story.

      Otherwise you're just pissing people off and making yourself look like a jackass.

      Sorry, but god I just can't stand negative people these days.

      I have been having really good success lately, not on facebook, just in my life in general. I truely believe it has SO MUCH to do with stepping AWAY from negativity and into a truely open mindset where you believe anything is possible.

      Sure its good to be skeptical, but what a waste of intelligence it is to always see the negative side of things. What a waste of life it is to always be looking for reasons why something won't work.

      -Red
      I actually thought this was just some way of building up to the software release of his product.

      Either way, I'm glad he's found great success.
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  • Profile picture of the author doomzday
    Truely inspiring. Good job!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by xtraxx View Post

      well done!!
      ThanX X! ;-D
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  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

    I developed a facebook marketing platform (not available to the public) and wanted to build some real-life case studies of how successful using the system would be.
    Based on this paragraph and your sig, this is mainly a prelaunch post/topic.

    I sent out the launch announcement to friends around 10pm on May 6 and after a couple hours went to bed.
    Where they REAL friends? People you know online? People you added based on common likes? What type of "friends" are they? How did you get them?

    The answer makes a HUGE difference.


    Two important things were happening with every opt-in on the site:
    Opt-in before or after payment? Was it a free offer with an OTO?

    1. I could post directly on their facebook wall. But didn't do it except about once a week, maybe twice a week (reverse of what you'd think is successful, right?).
    I'm assuming you posted directly on their wall as-soon as they joined? If not, could you be more clear on how many times you actually posted during the two week process you are talking about in the "25k in2wk" stats?

    2. I got their best email address (from facebook) and they were automatically added to my autoresponder in the background. I also didn't email them except when I was also posting on their wall.
    It might not be the best now since the @FB email is used by deault. Just so you know.

    With all "that said," congrats on your success. While your post is lacking in needed details, it will help in two ways.

    1. Inspire others
    2. Give creative people ideals.

    - Garrie

    P.S. GO UK!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Good questions Garrie!

      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post


      Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

      I developed a facebook marketing platform (not available to the public) and wanted to build some real-life case studies of how successful using the system would be.
      Based on this paragraph and your sig, this is mainly a prelaunch post/topic.

      Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

      I sent out the launch announcement to friends around 10pm on May 6 and after a couple hours went to bed.
      Where they REAL friends? People you know online? People you added based on common likes? What type of "friends" are they? How did you get them?

      The answer makes a HUGE difference.
      Yep - it does. Not all were "personal" friends. It was on facebook. I answered this earlier with a better breakdown of the ~ 1500 friends I had at the time of the launch.

      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

      Two important things were happening with every opt-in on the site:
      Opt-in before or after payment? Was it a free offer with an OTO?
      waaaaaaay before. No free offer. Most opt-ins come in via webinar invite (that is posted on facebook) - to get webinar details you have to opt-in.

      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

      1. I could post directly on their facebook wall. But didn't do it except about once a week, maybe twice a week (reverse of what you'd think is successful, right?).
      I'm assuming you posted directly on their wall as-soon as they joined?
      I guess you missed this line:

      Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

      The tool I wrote can immediately post if I want it to, but I just don't use it that way.
      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      If not, could you be more clear on how many times you actually posted during the two week process you are talking about in the "25k in2wk" stats?
      I didn't keep exact stats. Probably 4 times. I usually only post 2 times a week, sometimes 3. And I don't recommend that for all niches, some you have to post a lot less (like the restaurant example I gave).

      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

      2. I got their best email address (from facebook) and they were automatically added to my autoresponder in the background. I also didn't email them except when I was also posting on their wall.
      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      It might not be the best now since the @FB email is used by deault. Just so you know.
      Seems your experience and mine are different. I'm not getting a bunch of @fb emails. I think out of 3,000+ total added to the list (2,700 is the current number, obviously there have been opt-outs, an average of a couple percent per emailing) only 2 or 3 have/had the wild @fb email. When I tested this myself I saw that it defaulted to my real email, I could change it if I wanted, but it took extra action - obviously an action that less than 1% ever take.

      Maybe your app and/or experience is different, but mine so far is good.

      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      With all "that said," congrats on your success. While your post is lacking in needed details, it will help in two ways.

      1. Inspire others
      2. Give creative people ideals.
      That's what I was aiming for. Obviously I can't sit here and write a documentary on my entire operation. I wanted to put enough detail that someone could be inspired and get some business model ideas from it - and along the way meet friends doing the same thing who are looking to colaborate (as I have through this post).

      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      P.S. GO UK!
      Nice! When it comes to sports I'm only interested in the #2 sport in the world.
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  • Profile picture of the author mmallor
    Congrats! Great to hear that people are doing such great things!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by mmallor View Post

      Congrats! Great to hear that people are doing such great things!
      Cool, thanks mmallor!
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  • Profile picture of the author FiatMoney
    Great Job Sir! And good luck with your project in the future
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  • Profile picture of the author celente
    HI most people search for the HOLY GRAIL to making money online, but here is real proof that you just need to keep at it, test things and work hard....there is your HOLY GRAIL. LOL.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by FiatMoney View Post

      Great Job Sir! And good luck with your project in the future
      Thanks Fiat!

      Originally Posted by celente View Post

      HI most people search for the HOLY GRAIL to making money online, but here is real proof that you just need to keep at it, test things and work hard....there is your HOLY GRAIL. LOL.
      Celente - exactly - just keep working and working hard. It will happen if you don't quit.
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  • Profile picture of the author liindsay
    Wow this story is inspiring!

    Congrats on your success man, and all the best with making that first million!
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Pickett
      Originally Posted by liindsay View Post

      Wow this story is inspiring!

      Congrats on your success man, and all the best with making that first million!
      Thanks liindsay!
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